Resilience has evolved from its initial conception within systems ecology, to its current use in complex systems management and second order cybernetics. The theory was developed as a direct challenge to systems management that emphasised equilibrium states and a command and control approach. Practitioners and theorists of resilience are charged with the difficult task of converting the principles of a resilience perspective into an operational framework. However, this task is being applied to more than just the application of resilience to the environmental aspects of systems management, but instead incorporates a much broader framework of social-ecological governance. This article outlines some concern with the emerging use of resilience as a wide-ranging policy tool, arguing caution in its current application. This argument is essentially based on the observation of a tendency toward self-referencing. For example, a particular methodology of power appears to be emerging within crisis adaptation which, to some extent, inoculates itself to critique. What may be actually needed is a counter-systemic viewpoint that can challenge dominant views beyond present capabilities.